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Posts
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Phone calls, granite, what do we do?
Yesterday a customer called me that I gave a price quote to a year ago. She had been in my shop at lease 6 times and I even went to her house to give the quote. She said this is Mrs. ??? Do you remember me, and I said yes. She begins by saying we decided to get granite instead of Formica’s solid surface, but I have a question for you. Last week I knocked over a bottle of Olive oil on my granite counter and it broke. Now I have a huge dark stain in the middle of my Island, do you know how I can get it out? I COULDN’T HELP FROM LAUGHING. After I regained my composer I asked did you call the company that installed the top? She said yes, a dozen times, but they are not returning my calls. I thought to my self, I got nothing to lose because I had already lost another customer to the $40 granite guys. I told her you can do one of two things and that is, take a hammer and chisel and chisel it out or rub Olive oil on the whole top and everything would match. Now you know why, I sell solid surface. She said OK and hung up.
This only adds to my aggravation. I see ads on TV every day in the Detroit area Call 1-800-40- GRANITE, INSTALLED PRICE WITH 50 COLORS AND 5 EDGE STYLES TO CHOOSE FROM, .ALL WORK GUARANTEED. There is another company advertising $39 sq ft with a free SS sink, it must be one of those $49.95 models from the Box Store. I think that granite is out selling Laminate in the Detroit area, because the only people buying counters are people with extra $$$, and there are very few.
The only calls I get anymore are people looking for granite, when I ask them why do they want granite? They usually say it is the BEST !!!!!!!! ALL THE MAGAZINES SAY SO and it will last forever. What is wrong with this picture, what are all the manufactures doing to defend their PRODUCT??????????????????????????????????????????????? Come on DUPONT< FORMICA< ARISTECH
Dani Homrich
Dani DesignsUsing YOUR PRODUCTS for 20 YEARS
While I understand the jest of the post and the reasoning behind it, several thoughts come to mind. Do homeowners EVER ask what the granite top is sealed with or if it was EVER sealed at all? And I’m not talking about some $15.00 a quart mung from the home center. Of coarse, 40-50 a dollar a sq ft stone dude probably has no regard for sealing it at all. We actually have 29dollarasqfoot.com granite guy in our back yard. As far as the chisel it out or pour more olive oil on it part, obviously the 3rd choice would have been a quality pumice product to lift out the stain but I guess since you lost the job, giving advice for free does not cut it.It would’nt for me either. I see the frustration but that is probably why the majority of our customer base offers both stone & SS. Why lose out to granite guy, when you can become one. A progression if you will.
Capitalism is a bitch. We all face it everyday. I would love to see solid surface get more aggresive, but like you said, when the magazines are pitching a product, it is hard to change their minds.
It comes down to educating the end consumer! Most people think that stone is the best (especially granite) because that is what they see in the high dollar homes. Most of those people that had it in the past, had others take care of it for them. I think the solid surface companies should do more marketing to the people who live in the homes not to the guys in the trade, we already know about it, that is why we have it in our homes. Dani I agree with you entirely.
Quick story, A few years ago I was doing some calls on interior designers and visited one. I told him I did solid surface and his response was ” I dont want that junk, I only use the best granite!” A couple months later, a friend of mine called to ask me to stop by and look at her counter, which was solid surface. Turns out that same designer was working in her home doing window treatments using her raised bar top as a work bench, drill slipped, damaged the top. I repaired it,and on my way home stopped by his office to give him a rather large bill and to explain that if it were stone, it probably would have broke and he would be buying a new top. Repairability of that kind is only available in solid surface.
My wife receives a bunch of designer home type magazines in the mail. Of course, the homes they feature are not row houses in, you name the town. Just about every island and top is stone. Consumers see it…they want it.
While SS magazine is now Surface magazine catering to both sides of the aisle, STONE BUSINESS magazine is not. I just thumbed through my september issue and it’s all things stone. Unless I missed a page, I see no solid surface of any kind. And, why would the major players put anything SS in it? Afterall, it is “STONE BUSINESS” magazine. Then again, why not crossover and give their readers an option.
Stone Business magazine is published by Western Business Media, Orinda, CA.
Dani I feel your pain. We need to do something about this .I know it’s an old statement but we have to keep trying. I think Fabricators needs to step up to the plate and educate the consumer and especially the design field. Granite has its points but we all know Solid Surface has many more advantages.
Here are my suggestions
Put adds in newspaper highlighting the design benefits of Solid Surface. (Maybe someone could post a good idea for an add)
Corian, Formica, Avonite, EOS, Staron, Hi-Macs ETC. where not asking you to hold our hands. It’s more like a partnership. We need your input. Here’s your chance get off the sidelines and be part of this discussion. You want to sell sheet goods we want to sell CT .
When I saw the video of the z-island I knew Solid Surface wasn’t dead. But that type of design hasn’t made its way to the mainstream yet. So let’s make it a design option. We have to be creative. Ask you distributors for a list of architects call on them yourself get your name out there.
It’s been mentioned before that article in consumer reports was terrible but we all just sat there and took it. Time to fight back. Who’s got a plan? How about we flood there mail room with a response?
Dani thanks for waking us up.
Jon, you said:
Corian,
Formica, Avonite, EOS, Staron, Hi-Macs ETC. where not asking you to
hold our hands. It’s more like a partnership. We need your input.
Here’s your chance get off the sidelines and be part of this
discussion. You want to sell sheet goods we want to sell CT .I’m not so sure I want what is their idea of a partnership. Back when there was simple, effective coop funds for advertising; when we had more samples to give than we needed – free; when they actually, you know, listened to us, instead of our invoices, then we would have a partnership. A partnership that is based on “We’ll help you to do it our way” is not a partnership, it’s more like serfdom, and I’ll have non of it.
Dani, spot on with the wusses at the manufacturing level. They need to grow a pair, if you ask me. To be fair, they are all so intent on promoting other products that are closer and closer to slab granite (by DuPont!) that they feel like they will be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Think about it – the more the manufacturers cast their lot with the Home Centers, and ignore the individual retail fabricators and dealers that know the product, they are sacrificing the long-term health of the material for the bean-counting that passes for effective management today.
We were always told that us little craftsmen fabricators wouldn’t make it. Who do you think made the Z-Island. I guarantee large fabricators that are doing CT for home centers are not going to do it.
Tom,
What if we could start over and truely build a partnership with the solid surface manufacturers, vendors and fabricators, wouldn’t that be a good thing. I know it takes a lot of work, but we can try. They will come around once we stop bitching and start working at it. Please understand that I feel your pain about the things that happened in the past.
Andy,
Interesting that the small fabricator was the only fabricator in the early days, though. DuPont got most of their early ideas, and many current ones, from us. They seem to have forgotten that. The micro-managing fetish that drives most industries that have commoditized is very apparent here. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the manufacturers are mistaken from their point of view regarding what needs to happen in out industry. I just realized that our paths are so divergent that in many ways they would acting against their better instincts. They won’t do that, consciously, and I should not expect them to.They told us we were partners (Team Corian, anyone?) I was told by the Hi-Macs president early on that they were dedicating themselves to the fabricator. I hosted forums as state Coordinator for our ISSFA chapter, that was attended by the best WilsonArt had to send (Bill Degeatano, Kurt Haffner, Mike Weddington) and they were fantastic with the way they interacted with us. I hoped (hoped!) that things were changing. It seemed to be mostly rhetoric.
If they want to partner wiith us, they first need to realize that it is We who are standing athwart Granite’s market share crying “Halt!” We know our market, we know how our businesses are diffrerent and we still know that ideas still flow from the bottom to the top. You say that we might want to stop bitching and start working at a partnership? I say ok, as somon as they actually learn that a one sided partnership is not so much a partnership as a totalitarian endeavour. Asa far as rhetoric from the manufacturers, those players that strut and fret their hour on the stage, regarding their sincerity, I must paraphrase the great playwright:
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”
Except, of course, short-term profits for the manufacturers, resulting in long-term damage to the product’s reputations. That is ok, as I have stated before. It is their right as it is their product. They forget one thing, however. I don’t sell their product. I sell my product made with their material. They will want none of that partnership, I think.
Thanks for responding, Andy.
Tom
Tom you can build a partnership. I have to disagree with you. Andy’s point is good. At my company we always look for ways to partner. I have found over the years it wasn’t the manufacture that was the problem it was more a bad rep. Sometimes you need to jump over these reps and go to the top.
Tom,
If I understand correctly, you think it is a good idea, but you have been down this road before and got burned so you are reluctant. I understand that. If I got something going, would I have some support from you and other to see if this can work a second time.
I remember back in the early years of 1940’s when Japan dropped torpedos on the United States. We are now strong allies.
We once stated, “The British are coming, the British are coming”, and then we shot. We are now allies with the Brits.
If we can overcome that, we can surely overcome a few negative experiences with the manufacturers. Don’t you think?
Dani, good post. Here is what we have been doing for years to “turn” jobs into solid surface. We keep a big folder of anti granite/anti e-stone info from findstone.com, e-stone warranty cards showing exclusions and warnings, profesional trade journal magazines, even a few ads from e-stone companies. Also in the showroom, and carried to all home and garden shows, are some 12 x 12 granite tiles bought from a local cheapy granite company in the same colors as their tops. I used some common household food items to stain them, coffee, tea, soda, oil, sliced cheese, soy sauce, mayonaise, ketchup, ect. Just put a dab on the tile, make a grid on a peice of paper to keep track of what each stain is, and six or seven hours later, rinse the tile off. Not all granite will stain the same, but almost all stone will stain with something.
When a customer asks about the differences between granite and solid surface, we show them the tiles, breifly show them the folder of granite info, and give them the website so they can check out for themselves. Maybe one out of ten will continue with a granite top. We also have a ten year old countertop taken out of a home due to a warrantee claim on a sink. We left the old caulk on the top and show it to almost all customers at the end of the “pitch”. That top, which avonite paid us to replace, has sold dozens and dozens of jobs that we might have lost to other brands or granite. This is a luxury product, stand behind your product, and safety of the investment will trump style or price.
We lost a kitchen countertop a few weeks ago to e-stone, customer wouldn’t consider solid surface at all for the kitchen. We did sell the cabinets and got the vanity tops. I went through the reasons for using solid surface and not using e-stone, but the couple would dismiss everything, finially saying they wouldn’t consider solid surface. So, we quoted e-stone that we sell and got another quote from another e-stone firm.
Today, we went to the jobsite and the customer asked how long it would take for the vanties to be done, and I replied that they were in the truck and were being carried in as we speak. We set the tops while the customer watched. When done, she confessed that she was the one totally against solid surface, but had no idea how beautiful it could be, and was dissapointed that she had ordered silestone and was having to wait six weeks. She was having trouble deciding if she wanted soap dispensers, and remarked that it was a permant decision. I mentioned, that it wasn’t, the hole could be filled in to like new condition if she changed her mind after putting them in. Although we stressed the repairablity of solid surface, she just wasn’t listening during the sales process. Keep in mind that while this was going on, the silestone guy was in the house templating the top.
The month before,after being rebuffed for attempting to educate the customer on choices of material, I said “yes mam” and dropped the advice. They wound up buying from home depot, silestone, because it was $1,000 cheaper than the independent shops that had quoted. I did mention that using the low bidder was risky, and told them what to expect. So, today the silestone guy templated the tops, using three pieces to do a small batwingbar top that I would have done in one or two parts at the most, even a ten inch piece at the end of the bar top.
Silestone did do one thing, that I thought was clever. They had a customer sign a long form warning of the weak points of e-stone, ol, scotch brite, powder type cleaners, heat, oven cleaners, high ph cleaners,bleach, ect. They stressed cleaning the top EVERY day. Of course the top had been paid for already, so it was time to manage expectations. The homeowner got a big let down reading all this, It was all I could do not to smile.
Another job, big one for us, the contractor and designer were stressed out when we were setting the upper cabs on some granite that was finially installed after a six week wait. The were afraid we would scratch or break the tops while setting the cabinets. I took the oportunity to ask why when the stone guys were selling the granite, it was almost as hard as diamonds, didn’t need a warranty cause nothing could happen to it, ect. The designer and builder both laughed and said they knew it was bull****, but the customer wanted granite.
So, in short, build a folder of info on the weakness of competing products, get hold of an old solid surface top to show how it holds up, and above all, start selling the e-stone and granite pre made tops. If you sell it and don’t recomend it, that speaks louder than anything else you can do. Let the cheap guys fight for the bottom of the market, poor service and poor work will drive them out of business. Those cheap tops will have to be replaced soon, read all about it on stoneadvice.com.
Above all, join us in these post directed to the manufactures demanding better standards and policing the ranks of bad fabricators. I know someone brought up the fact that formica still is selling to the tops on line website guy, but no other formica fabricator pitched in the discussion.
What I would like to see is the manufactures join together like the beef council and promote the general product. Charge an extra five bucks a sheet to the fabricator, kick in another five bucks a sheet themselves into a coop ad fund to be used by local fabricators on a 50/50 basis.
I know where Tom is coming from. The area that we work in has not always been user friendly for fabricators. But I believe that culture is gone. In many ways the Solid surface industry is in a survival posture from top to bottom. I agree again with Andy’s last post. Also The Cygnus show is a great place to network not just with other fabricators but the Manufactures as well. When my company goes we view it as a sales opportunity.
Why not enter something in the design contest? Get your name out there. It doesn’t have to be the z-island just something that shows your skill. Who cares if it wins that just the icing on the cake?
Go to the Opening address of the show . Its open to all. Many of the industry leaders are there get to know them build your network.
Remember this Bees stick to Honey.
PS Al nice job
YEs it would be nice to see solid surface get more aggressive. I have spent many hours lately and even on this forum becoming educated about Estone and granite. What I have started to think is why are the manufactures of SS looking at ways to look like and be like and even making there own Estone products. It is simply they want to make more money and go with the new trend. Meanwhile they might have forgotten the fact that the smaller fabricators, who probably over all sell more dollars of their product than than large guys, get left behind. The leading edge design thoughts and ways to improve the product get left out in the cold becouse now we either sell granite and Estone to at least make something or we lock our doors and go sell french fries at McDonalds.Why don’t the major companies embrace the fabricators more and help us help them sell the product. After all most of us will say we are the best salesmen for our product which is countertops made with their sheet stock. Seams to me I would do something to work out good partnerships so all could benifit .After all who really makes granite any way, not much choice what we can do with it is there?
I would like to thank all for taking the time to respond to this topic.
First off my post was not about getting in the Granite business, if I wanted to do that I would have done that 10 years ago. At this point it is not good business since; the granite install trucks are tripping over one another on their way to the job site around here.
As fore the past that is done. We have a fight on our hands we must save our future.
The phone call aggravated me, so I took the time to tell others of a trend I see happening in the counter top business. Yes, I looked into my Crystal Ball. I am at the front line of a growing trend that will hurt solid surface all over the country, not just here in Detroit, for a fact I know it is happening in Buffalo also. If I’m wrong tell me I was wrong in 5 years and I will say I’m wrong. I have been in business for 32 years selling to the home owner; believe me I listen to what they are saying. When I talk to home owners and they tell me that there Realtor said “It doesn’t matter what your cabinets look like, but you must install GRANITE to sell your home.” This is a very bad thing. With a network of Realtors all saying the same thing, this home selling tool will spread like wild fire.
Homes around here in the 150k that would normally be a Laminate job are now granite jobs. I’m just waiting to see it go into the Double Wide at this point, I sure it won’t be long. When my phone rings I answer it, out of 10 calls 7 are looking for granite , 2 for laminate, 1 solid surface. Need I say any more?Al, nice post, I do much the same when it comes to selling solid surface. When a customer walks into my door, I show a cove backsplash and all the design possibility’s there are for solid surface. I also have my granite samples to show the difference in maintance of the two products. Then I show them the care and feeling and sign off sheet (I got from an ex-employee that now works at a rock shop) they will get after there granite top is installed. 7 out 10 times they will buy solid surface. The problem is getting the customers to come in when there Realtor told them they must get granite if they want to sell there home.
Come on people, when Laminate is rated Higher then Solid Surface something MUST BE DONE!!!!!!!!!
Just in case anyone forgot the link
Dani Homrich
Dani Designs
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